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From Graham Greene's novel, The End of the Affair:
So much in writing depends on the superficiality of one's days. One may be preoccupied with shopping and income tax returns and chance conversations, but the stream of the unconscious continues to flow undisturbed, solving problems, planning ahead: one sits down sterile and dispirited at the desk, and suddenly the words come as though from the air: the situations that seemed blocked in a hopeless impasse move forward: the work has been done while one slept or shopped or talked with friends.
Greene's narrator complains that he's having trouble with his book, in spite of writing 500 words per day (just as the author reportedly did), because he's preoccupied with thoughts that go "deeper than the book"--his unconscious is at work on a different obsession.
Certainly many of us have experienced this--that the day can be filled with mundane tasks having little to do with writing, which would seem to take one away from a focus on the work, and yet because those ordinary activities require little creative energy, they can serve as indifferent fuel to the unconscious. So your mind continues to work independently, crafting solutions to your creative problems at the same time you take out the trash. That is, I suppose, as long as you don't become obsessed with the deeper meanings to be found in the things you throw away.
Now that a fast and furious storm has left me with two trees sitting on the power lines in my front yard, as well as a broken driveway, I'm counting on my subconscious to continue working on my novel, while my conscious mind is taking estimates from the tree people... I must admit that I would welcome Greene's list of superficial distractions over sitting on hold with the insurance company any day.
